


No Matter Where They're From

by Tora



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Steve Rogers is a good man, World War II, and he's not having any of your racist bullshit, period typical racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 21:39:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1663379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tora/pseuds/Tora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The photographer calls to get their attention. Steve’s eyes land on Gabe and Jim standing off to the side. Jim’s face is carefully blank, but his fists are clenched at his sides. Gabe just looks tired and resigned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Matter Where They're From

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for period-typical racism, more detailed warning in the end notes.

A month after the rescue of the 107th a two star American general arrives in camp with photographer and a journalist for the Times. The people back home still remember Captain America’s USO tour. The people want to know more about Captain America, the general says. There’s a comic strip about him now, Captain America and the Howling Commandos and won’t it be great to get a picture of the good captain and the men who inspired the strip? Steve sighs, because he thought that serving in a combat zone would mean he was free of this sort of circus, but he agrees anyway because what else could he say? He wishes Peggy were here, she'd commiserate with him at least. But she's in France on a mission of her own. Bucky just smirks at him and makes a comment about finding him some tights.

 

They all assemble for the picture. Steve’s distracted, too busy trying to talk to Dernier in his broken French to notice the way the general is waving Jones and Morita away. The photographer calls to get their attention and Steve’s eyes land on Gabe and Jim standing off to the side. Jim’s face is carefully blank, but his fists are clenched at his sides. Gabe just looks tired and resigned.

 

At first Steve’s puzzled, because the picture is supposed to be all of the commandos, right? Then he realizes the problem and the anger burns hot and sharp in his chest. Gabe and Jim are his soldiers, heroes in their own right, and he’ll be damned if he’ll let anyone forget that. He’s never been one to stand by when he saw an injustice, not even when he was tiny and fragile, he’s sure as shit not about to stand by now when he’s got the size and the rank to do something about it.

 

“Hold on a minute,” he says, stepping out of the frame. He strides over to Jim and Gabe, both of them giving him matching looks of surprise. Steve grabs them by the shoulders and steers them back into the group. The general is scowling and the journalist looks scandalized, but Steve just gives them his best beatific stage smile. “You said you wanted a picture of the Howling Commandos,” he says. “You forgot a few.”

 

Gabe recovers first and takes a spot to Steve’s right, grinning and incredulous. Bucky edges over and maneuvers Jim around to stand on Steve’s left. The others line up around them. Dernier stands at Gabe’s shoulder with Falsworth beside him. Dugan grumbles about not signing up for a damn pony show but takes his place beside Bucky anyway.

 

The general’s face goes red as a beet. “Captain, we can’t--.”

 

“You wanted the Howling Commandos, sir,” Steve says, firmly, his jaw set and smile still firmly in place. “These are the Commandos.”

 

The general whirls on Colonel Phillips. “I can’t have a Jap and a negro on the front page of the Times!” he hisses.

 

Phillips shrugs and lights up a cigar. “You wanna tell Captain America what to do, sir, be my guest,” he says. “Cause Lord knows he don’t listen to me.”

 

The picture ends up on the front page of every major Allied newspaper in North America and Europe. The headline reads: “Captain America and his Howling Commandos on the front lines.”

 

At the Japanese internment camp at Manzanar, Hiroshi and Kimiko Morita show everyone the picture of their son on the front page of the paper. Mixed with fierce pride and a slow, simmering anger because their son is fighting for the same country that locked them away like so much cattle. Kimiko keeps the paper in a lacquered wooden box with Jim’s letters. On days when the thin walls of the barracks are closing in and she feels the hard knot of resentment unraveling she looks at the picture and her son’s letters and reassures herself that this hell will not last forever.

 

In Harlem, Felicity Jones tells everyone who will stand still long enough about her big brother Gabe, who’s fighting Nazis with Captain America. Their mother has always been proud of her boy, the first in their family to ever go to college, but the sight of him there, on the front page of the paper makes her heart ache with how proud she is, and how much she wants him home.

**Author's Note:**

> Period typical racism: Someone refers to Gabe Jones as a negro and Jim Morita as a Jap. Also mentions the Japanese internment camp at Manzanar.


End file.
